Screw You and Your Crusade For ‘Religious Liberty’

Sorry, But I’m Not Sorry

Screw you and your crusade for religious liberty. This phrase may offend. Make no mistake, I fully intended to provoke people with this title. However, I never seek to provoke anyone without a purpose. Allow me to explain the context of my rage. We live in a time of Orwelian double-speak. The Evangelical Right employs double-speak with many words: freedom, immigration, regulation, etc. Religious liberty is one such phrase.

Christian Double-Speak

Religious liberty, in common language, means the right to practice whatever religion you choose without hindrance. That’s not what Evangelicals mean when they use the term. First of all, the only group campaigning for religious liberty is Evangelical Christians. You won’t find angry mobs of Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists demanding that the mysterious attack on religious liberty be stopped.

Religious liberty is double-speak for the expansion of Christian power and influence. Infuriated by various defeats in the culture wars (Roe V. Wade, acceptance of LGBTQ+ citizens and causes), Evangelicals are striking back. They use the religious liberty label to frame the conversation in a way that puts the Constitution and the First Amendment front and center. In reality, this conversation has nothing to do with the Constitution. No one’s rights are under attack. This entire crusade is about turning the tide of the culture wars. Christians confuse not having absolute power with persecution.

Liberty means being free to do what you want. The problem here is that these militant Evangelicals want to dictate what everyone else does. Women can’t get abortions. Gays can’t marry. Men can’t watch porn. They love their rules. It’s ironic. Their idea of liberty involves legislating what everyone else can and cannot do. There’s a word for that. It’s called restrictions, i.e., the opposite of liberty.

Fuck You and Your Fucking Crusade

I am offended by the Trump administration every single day. There is no end to the saga of idiocy. Trump has even managed to alienate the Koch brothers with his multi-lateral trade war. Betsy Devos continues to roll back the civil rights of students so that creditors can collect easier (she has done great work at protecting due process on college campuses though). Scott Pruitt was ousted as head of the EPA, but his deputy is just as ideologically deranged. Unfortunately, he seems less liable to engage in embarrassing scandals than his predecessor. He’s only had one call for an ethics probe (impressive). Immigrant parents have still not been reunited with their children. Trump and his minions in the House of Representatives continue to spout conspiracy theories about the ‘witch hunt’ Russia investigation, which has already secured multiple guilty pleas and has resulted in a host of indictments. Trump jacks off murderous dictators and then spits in the face of our oldest allies. There’s just no end to the horror in sight. I feel desensitized.

Despite my numbness, due to the never-ending barrage of what-the-fuck moments, the administration still found a way to horrify me today. Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided that it was necessary to create a ‘religious liberty task force.’ Sessions mentioned a ‘dangerous new movement’ that ominously seeks to deprive god-fearers of their Constitutional rights. He emphatically stated that this modern SPECTRE of Jesus-freaks must be destroyed. This comes only a few months after Trump’s religious freedom executive order, which gave instructions for how federal agencies should protect religious rights. The debacle just infuriates me. Fuck them and their fucking religious liberty crusade.

Sessions acts like Christians are being crucified in the streets. I don’t see many news reports of Christians suffering bodily harm for their faith. There simply is no diabolical anti-Christian scheme.

I don’t know of a single liberal, politician or regular citizen, that wants to curtail religious freedom. While I want LGBTQ+ couples to be able to marry and adopt, I don’t want to prevent Christians from doing so. I’m not campaigning for anyone to get an abortion, I just don’t want anyone telling a woman what she can or cannot do with her body. The problem is that the Evangelical quest for ‘religious liberty’ is a clandestine political assault, with the ultimate aim of absolute power. They’re not content to live and let live. They don’t just want to do WHATEVER they want with no restrictions. They want to choose how other people get to live their lives. Quite often, discrimination is involved in the latter.

Damn (Fuck) Their Warnings, Damn (Fuck) Their Lies

Christians don’t have to deal with discrimination on a daily basis. Christianity is a religious monopoly. It’s as ubiquitous as McDonald’s. Christians are not oppressed in any way, shape or form. What’s the worst thing they had to go through? Some uptight baker didn’t want to cook a gay couple a wedding cake. Somehow, he made it through that traumatic episode without any permanent psychological damage.

Religious liberty crusaders want to have their cake and eat it too. They have all the power. They’re not oppressed. They’re not discriminated against. There are no liberal congressman that are trying to prevent Christians from voting. Christianity is the ultimate empire and it has never been content with simply being, with simply existing. There is always the need for aggressive expansion. It’s in the religion’s DNA. They’re so used to crusading, they don’t know how to exist when no one wants to fight them. Coexisting peacefully just isn’t enough. They need to be in the driver’s seat. I would appreciate it if the captain would accidentally turn a hard left and take the whole religious liberty movement over a cliff, figuratively speaking. Fuck the crusade.